


All These Words

by imogenbynight



Series: Coda Fic [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12.23 coda, Angst, Canonical (temporary) Character Death, Dean loses the ability to speak, Grieving Dean Winchester, M/M, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: On the ground by the lake house in North Cove, Washington, Dean struggles with losing Cas, and loses his voice in the process.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Coda Fic [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/246598
Comments: 19
Kudos: 154





	All These Words

Dean’s eyes are bone dry.  There’s a humming in his ears, ringing, ringing, ringing, and his throat constricts, and his hands feel detached. Like something came and sliced them clean off; dropped them onto the sandy gravel that’s digging into his knees.

Maybe he has sand in his eyes. Maybe it’s ash. Cas' wings burned, after all—the evidence is right there before him—so maybe—maybe—

_Breathe_ , Dean thinks. Breathe in. Out. He catches the smell of the lake water, the forest, the sand, and tries to think. Has to try.  Distantly, he becomes aware that someone is walking toward him. A looming shape in the dark. He blinks. Blinks until his eyes start processing reality properly again, and the tall shadow reforms into his brother.

Sam's face is gray and faded, as though he hasn’t slept for a week, but it’s only been minutes since Dean saw him. He thinks it’s been minutes. He can't know for sure.

Sam’s eyes drop to Cas, and Dean's follow suit. Takes in his eyelids, his mouth, the flush on his cheeks that hasn’t yet faded. There’s lint on his collar. Dean itches to brush it away, but that would mean touching him, and if he does that... if he does that, he’ll know. He’s not ready to know.

As Dean stares down at him, a breeze makes Cas’ hair shift over his forehead, and the movement makes Dean’s heart clench. He thought— for a second he thought—

“The nephilim is gone,” Sam’s voice filters through, and Dean blinks, looks up at him. "It's not a baby. Didn't get much of a look at him before he bailed. No idea how we're gonna track him, but... we can figure it out later."

Dean's gaze drops away again. It doesn't matter. The nephilim will kill them all, or it won't, but it's all fucked either way. His throat constricts around a scream that he can't let out. On the ground before him, Cas doesn't make a sound. Dean thinks of his voice, of the cadence of his footsteps in the bunker, of the way he sighs when Dean refuses to explain himself in simple terms. It seems absurd to think that those sounds are gone. Impossible.

“Do you want to do it here, or at the bunker?”

The question doesn’t make any sense until Dean looks back up and notices what Sam is holding in his hands. Salt. Gasoline. He wants to give Cas a hunter’s funeral.

The word _no_ gets caught in Dean’s throat, blocked by that suspended scream. He doesn’t even move his mouth, but Sam still flinches as though he’d shouted it.

Dean’s going to be sick. He remembers this feeling; the way his chest feels full of so much sound that it might destroy him if he lets any of it out. He remembers how scared he was the last time this happened. When he felt like he'd die if he held it in, but might kill everyone else if he didn't. He stares at Sam and tries not to let it show, but Sam looks like he's already seen. He can't know, not really. He'd been a baby, last time, and Dean hasn't exactly shared the memory of what he was like when Mom died. But Sam still sees. Still seems to realize that Dean just _can't_ right now.

“I’ll deal with Kelly, okay?” Sam says after a minute. “Give you time to...”

He doesn’t finish. Just squeezes Dean's shoulder and trails off. Walks off, around the house. Dean barely notices him as he trudges back and forth between the car and the yard, collecting a shovel, some dry branches, carrying Kelly’s body out of the house wrapped in her bed sheet. It’s nearly dawn when the acrid smell of smoke drifts over him, and Sam’s footsteps approach cautiously.

“It’s done,” he says.

Dean nods, barely.

“Do you want me to help you carry him?”

Cas still hasn’t moved. He’s not going to move. _He is,_ an insistent little voice in the back of Dean’s mind says. _He always comes back._

“Dean, let me help,” Sam says, crouching down, and suddenly, it’s easy to let himself touch. Dean blocks his brother’s hands, sliding one arm under Cas’ shoulders and the other under his knees. 

He’s heavier than he looks, all solid muscle under the shabby trench coat. Dean’s legs are trembling so badly he can barely support his own weight, but he somehow still manages to stagger to his feet and heft Cas up with him.

Cas’s head lolls back, limp. Dean shifts his grip. Pulls him closer to his own chest so his neck isn’t bent at an uncomfortable angle. Not that it really matters. But... it matters. Of course it matters.

He’s still a little warm in Dean's arms. His body heat hasn't quite faded. Dean holds him close, and tries to keep his breathing steady when he feels a sob trying to break it’s way through his chest. He’s still warm. He still smells like Cas.

Usually, when he gets this close, Dean has to fight the urge to kiss him. Now, he’s not sure why avoiding it seemed so important. He should have done it. _Could_ have done it. He’s sure Cas would’ve kissed him back. God, he was an idiot. He thought they had more time. He always thought there'd be more time.

With unsteady steps, he heads toward the house, and Sam touches his shoulder. His brow is creased in a frown.

“It’s this way, Dean,” he says, gesturing past the building to the place where he's built a second pyre, but Dean can't. He won't. Not yet. “It’s all ready for him.”

Dean ignores him and ascends the creaking steps.

“Dean?”

There’s a sturdy wooden table in the dining room, and Dean lays Cas out on it, careful to hold the back of his head as he rests it on the hard surface. He fixes Cas' collar. Smooths out the creases in the front of his shirt. His fingers catch on the torn fabric at Cas’s chest, singed at the edges and stiff with old blood, and he feels his stomach lurch. Acid burns his throat.

_He’ll need new clothes when he wakes up_ , he thinks, and steps back, planning to head for the car. When he sees Sam standing in the doorframe, brow furrowed even further, mouth set in a grim line, he freezes. Glances back down at Cas before fixing his brother with a hard stare. He still can’t find his voice, but his command is clear. _Don’t move him._

“Dean...”

_Don’t_.

Everything is narrowed down to simple thoughts. Single words. Car. Trunk. Duffel. House. Cas. Cas. Cas. _Cas_. _Cas_.

Sam is sitting on a chair when Dean comes back, head dipped low, his hand on Cas’s shoulder as he speaks.

“...much it meant to us. Thank you, Cas.”

He glances up at the sound of Dean’s feet stomping over floorboards. His cheeks are wet. Eyes red-rimmed as he looks down at the bag in Dean’s hands in confusion.

“What are you doing?”

Dean couldn’t answer if he wanted to. He walks over. Brushes Sam aside and carefully slips the trenchcoat down over Cas’s shoulders. Lifts him a little to ease it down his back and off his arms.

“Dean?”

The coat gets slightly stuck at his elbows. His arms won’t bend easily, his body growing difficult to move.

_Rigor mortis,_ Dean thinks, and has to fight hard against the scream that's building, threatening to rip him in two if he breathes a single sound. He works at the coat for a moment before finally pulling it free, then folds it over his arm—a memory, fishing the sodden trench coat out of a reservoir, flashes through his mind—and drapes it on the back of the nearest chair. Sam touches it gingerly and looks at Dean like he thinks he understands, but his words are still wrong. He doesn’t understand. Can’t understand.

“You want to keep it?”

Dean just shakes his head and unbuttons Cas’s shirt. He tries to unbutton Cas’s shirt. But his fingers are shaking too badly, and he only manages the first two before Sam reaches out to stop him. He glances at the bag Dean brought in.

“You want to get him a clean shirt?”

Dean swallows, and nods.

Sam takes over, carefully pulling buttons free until he can pull the shirt off, then turns to look at Dean. He holds a hand out.

“Dean?” he asks, patient and quiet. “Did you bring a shirt for him?”

Dean hasn’t so much as opened the duffel. His eyes are fixed on Cas—on his tan skin, his toned arms, his dried blood.  The hole in his chest. 

There’s a hole in Cas’ chest.

_ There's a hole in Cas' chest. _

Dean feels it in his own. 

Acceptance hits him like a fist to the throat, and he can't help the sound he makes.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this coda back when 12.23 aired, thought it was terrible, and never posted it. But I just read it over and... it's... fine? So who knows what my problem was. Presumably it was just my brain being a jerk, as it is wont to do. I think I might have inadvertently cannibalized some moments/turns of phrase from this in my 15.18 coda, but I guess that's bound to happen considering the similar subject matter.
> 
> Title taken from Nothing Else Matters by Metallica, which was coincidentally used for The Road So Far montage that kicked off Dean's grief arc in S13. I must have known, somehow.
> 
> Dean's temporary inability to speak while grieving Mary as a child is fringe canon from John's Journal, which was published online way back when the first seasons were airing.
> 
> Anway, I hope you enjoyed the misery!


End file.
